


Limb From Limb

by AtlinMerrick



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Warning for brief violence and homophobia, happy ending!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 21:56:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1242040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlinMerrick/pseuds/AtlinMerrick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For John Watson it was worth a wound, it was worth many wounds, to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind those sharp, grey eyes. (Warning for brief violence and homophobia; happy ending!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [AtlinMerrick: Limb from Limb - Russian translation - В клочья](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3901231) by [SilverRaindemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverRaindemon/pseuds/SilverRaindemon)



> This story [also in Russian](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3901231/chapters/8728723)! Thank you Silverraindemon.

It was a day for rage.

It was sunny, for one. Not good when you're made of milk and bleached bones and chalk. Which is to say if you're a certain sort of English.

It was futile for another. Not good if you'd like a bit of locum work but there's nothing, absolutely nothing, going. Which is to say John Watson.

And finally, it was boring. Not good if you're petulant, demanding, obsessive and so very, very smart. Which is to say Sherlock Holmes.

So the day was set up for rage if you want the truth. And so rage is what they got.

* * *

The first man was shorter than John, the other no taller. Later, just about everyone—Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft—would attribute their cruelty to that, because people desperately need to give reason to things, even very smart people.

The rage of those two men had nothing to do with their stature, however, it had to do with a youth of casual violence, of growing up in a place where fury seemed the only outlet, and where there were always bones and glass and hearts waiting for the breaking.

If speaking for themselves those men would tell you John was asking for it. Because sometimes if you're white and male, straight and angry, well sometimes the only justification you need is black or female or gay. Be any one of those things and that's reason enough to hurt you. Hell, it's a neon sign. It's fucking permission.

John kisses Sherlock in public. At first he was reticent about that. The world's a backward place, something an army doctor knows firsthand. So when he and Sherlock became lovers five months back, John thought he'd keep the public displays of affection low-key.

Yet to his surprise the good doctor found himself with a quite justified self-righteousness, a need to have what everyone else had. And what they had was the simple right to publically hold their lover's hand, whisper in their sweetie's ear, to buss a pretty mouth.

So John came to do all those things quite quickly, possibly initiating even more than Sherlock, who had never given one tinker's damn about what anyone saw or thought.

The point is, those two thugs? They would say John was obviously a little queer so he was asking for it. They saw him put his tongue in the other fairy's _mouth_ and if that ain't begging to have your shit rearranged right quick, what is?

The problem, the whole problem with everything that happened because of that, is that it didn't happen right then, not right after that sloppy, silly, very out-in-public kiss, it happened a day later, when Sherlock was angry with John and so Sherlock wasn't there. He wasn't there when John needed him.

* * *

They don't fight much. People think they must. They presume Sherlock's temperament, his eccentricities, his maggot-filled experiments would try a saint's patience and yes, sure, Sherlock's high-strung, peculiar, and keeps close company with dead things, but he's also passionate, inventive, and loyal.

So they don't actually fight often and when they do it's about ridiculous things like whether the new toaster is _Sherlock's_ toaster to be used for the macabre heating of unspeakable things, or whether the new toaster is _John's_ toaster, to be used for the heating of bread. They will both insist that the old toaster belongs to the other, the toaster that groans almost in an obscene way, something that finally got so disturbing even Sherlock was disinclined to use it.

That's not what they fought about that day though. It was about consent _,_ it was about John insisting that Sherlock get his permission to take a case, any case, and frankly that, phrased just that way, was so ridiculous that Sherlock looked at John and pronounced him, "Mentally incapacitated and delusional."

The words were inflammatory but Sherlock was right and John knew it. He also knew his own angry response was out of all proportion to the stimuli and even as the words left his mouth John regretted them, knew they were wrong, and yet he let them fly.

"Seven out of ten cases you _get_ now are because of me, me and my blog are what's keeping you fed, the least you could do is show some gratitude."

There's not going to be much John regrets in his life, and most of what he does is going to be words. Because John's not an overly talkative man so when he does get on a roll it's often when he's angry and the very absolute best time to say things for which you'll later feel remorse is when you're annoyed because you feel useless.

Initially Sherlock didn't reply because he suddenly got it: John was in a snit and looking for a fight.

Well too bad. Sherlock won't argue back when John's really spoiling for it because John Watson's nowhere near as well-equipped for blistering invective as the man who spent nearly thirty-four years honing this terrible skill.

Instead Sherlock did something worse. He apologised.

"I'm sorry John. You're right. I'm wrong. I'll ask your permission next time."

Sherlock doesn't even try to lie well anymore, especially not to John, and right now that annoyed John even more. "I'm going out," he said.

And then he did.

* * *

The good doctor stood on 221B's stoop for five long minutes. First he thought about going to the pub a few doors down. Then he thought about going back upstairs. Finally he fiddled with his phone, nearly sending a text to Lestrade.

Then with a shrug he did indeed send a text— _I'm sorry love. I'm sorry. Going for a walk. Back soon—_ and then John headed toward St. John's Wood to get his damn head on straight.

He was a few hundred metres along Park Road when there were words, very close.

"Hey faggot."

Later that's what John would fixate on, the man's use of the American invective.

Not that John even heard him at first, he didn't. So the ugly little man made sure John heard his ugly little insult by coming right alongside him, and hissing, "Hey fairy, I'm talking to you."

John's a lot of the things people say he is. Strong, brave, yeah sure, he's a regular little warrior. But what most don't know is he emphatically does not seek out a fight. A fist to the face—whether getting or giving—hurts _and_ leaves you feeling like shit later, no matter on which end of the violence you stood.

So John didn't engage the fool beside him, he just kept walking. Except now his hands were no longer in his pockets.

"Maybe the little poof's a deafie, too."

John's breath left him in a startled rush. He hadn't heard the other one until the man was on the other side of him, _touching_ him.

John stopped walking the moment he felt those fingers at the back of his neck. "Get the fuck off," he said, turning, cocking his arm to swing.

And that's as far as he got because just as John had been before, these men were spoiling for it and so they swung at the same time, one at John's belly, the other his head.

As he hit the pavement John curled fetal and the calm part of his mind, the part that helps keep his hands steady, that part told him to stay tucked, to protect his belly and chest and face from the feet and while he did that, exactly that, another part of his mind chanted _kick, kick, kick,_ and that seemed like a good idea too and maybe, when he could breathe again, maybe John'd do that, yeah, that'd be a good first effort but not just yet because it was getting kind of serious, the whole not being able to breathe thing, so he really needed to concentrate on relaxing his cramping belly enough so he could—

—John sucked in a sharp breath when one of the men fell on top of him, then flopped onto the pavement, out bloody cold.

John groaned giddy, because he was breathing now, and then he was rolling over and sitting up but Sherlock was going down, down onto his knees over the second man, and he was bashing the man's face into dirty pavement not once—

"Sherlock!"

—not twice—

"Sherlock!"

—god no, not three times—

_"Sherlock!"_

John lunged from his sitting position, toppling Sherlock off the thug's back, though one of his long legs still managed to kick out, connecting with the man's jaw.

"No!" John howled, wrapping himself around his lover's body as Sherlock thrashed wild, like something gut-stabbed and dying.

_"Stop!"_

But there's no easy way to stop a freight train that's gathered steam, not until it's spent its momentum or been derailed.

Mercifully, Sherlock took care of that on his own.

He went suddenly boneless beneath John, and started crying.

_Sherlock._

John didn't say it with words, just with everything else, with a gentle hand against Sherlock's cheek, a kiss to his forehead, with shushing at his lover's ear.

But Sherlock would not be shushed, because once he's committed himself—to just about anything—the man is god damn lavish. So Sherlock gave in to his misery, sobbing as if he were broken somewhere, wailing like a hungry infant left too long alone.

It was about then John saw the first man stirring, and with a soft "Stay," he crawled over, peeling open first one of the man's eyelids, then the other, ignoring a weak flail that tried to bat his hand away.

Satisfied that the arse was not seriously compromised, John turned to the second man and knew before he touched him that here things would be so much worse.

_Concussion and intracranial injuries nearly certain._

_Multiple contusions._

_Possible shoulder dislocation. Make that two._

Even as he assessed damage John dialed 999, speaking aloud what his examination uncovered, twice repeating himself, once because he was too dizzy to focus, once because Sherlock had choked off his own sobs as if he had, indeed, been _choked,_ and then crawled over and tried beating the bloody man bloodier.

Grappling with his lover, keeping an eye on the waking thug, coping with his own wooziness, it took John so long to complete the emergency call that about the time he did, help had arrived.

Thank heaven for small mercies. Or not-quite six-foot mercies named Gregory Lestrade, who got them home within two hours, after a detour to A&E.

And it was there, in the sanctity of their calm and quiet home, that Sherlock Holmes derailed a second time.

_My universe doesn't contain Moriartys, Reichenbachs, or much in the way of homophobia, but this story's been in my head awhile. There's one more chapter, maybe two and all will end well. My stories for them always will. (P.S. No, this is not my pending angst fic, this one's an entirely different angst fic.)_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's a man for the first time in love with a man and he's a genius too, is Sherlock Holmes. So right then he employed that genius and imagined who he'd be without John Watson...

The madness didn't come right away. No, for Sherlock it took awhile. Because when they got home, the good detective had something he had to do: Examine.

But first there was waiting. Waiting for John to remove his gloves, his scarf, his coat.

Sherlock had none of these to shed, having flown down the stairs in pyjama bottoms, a t-shirt, and scuffed-on Armanis the moment he'd received John's _back soon_ text. Oblivious to the spring chill, he'd had no intention of letting John know he followed—he couldn't have even said _why_ he followed. No, Sherlock only knows he _did_ follow and for the rest of his life would be grateful for that.

And so on this, that first day of the rest of his life, Sherlock patiently waited.

John took his time hanging up coat and scarf. Took slow and careful time so he could make sure his expression was no expression. Which of course told Sherlock everything.

So the moment his lover turned, the good detective crowded close. But it wasn't to kiss or hug or hold, it was to hasten John to the kitchen, where a five hundred watt halogen light was busy dehydrating hair samples.

Sherlock shoved those samples to the table's edge, sat John in their place and angled the light.

And then stopped.

They've been five months together and still Sherlock has moments of reticence, shy to touch, not quite certain his touch is welcome.

So John told him it was.

He brushed his fingers over the back of Sherlock's right hand, on which three fingers were splinted for hairline fractures, and said, "Please?"

Yet still Sherlock didn't, and didn't, and then he unbuttoned John's cardigan, his shirt, removing both with a scientist's exacting care.

And stopped again, blinking.

With each blink he counted a colour. Blink…yellow. Blink…blue. Blink…black, purple, red, pink, something kind of green, each colour bleeding into the next, each one representing ruptured blood vessels beneath the surface of John's skin.

With his gaze Sherlock measured their hand-spanning width and height across his lover's ribs, and though he couldn't see, he knew how deep those bruises went, because he's seen bodies on morgue tables, bodies flayed open after suffering, and so Sherlock knew how deep John's injury nested, how the muscles were swollen, the bones tender, could guess how each breath pricked John's skin cold.

And for the first time Sherlock knew more than that. He knew such pain went further than even he could see, that a scalpel and bone saw couldn't ever open a human deep enough to show the wounds left by _not being there._

It was then Sherlock tried looking at John's face, at his swollen, discoloured eye, at the gash over it, the one that would leave a tiny scar later though neither knew that now. Sherlock tried to look in John's eyes but he wasn't able, though he kept trying, oh yes he kept trying because it would be penance that, looking, seeing what he'd done by omission, by his own petulance, his absence, his—

That's when Sherlock started derailing, a freight driven by pounding heart and regret. It was a full-body tremour and it left him wordless but hissing, sightless but blinking fast, and it wasn't until John slid off the table and gathered him close that Sherlock let himself fall apart, trembling so hard they stumbled.

It took a few long, clumsy seconds, but John guided Sherlock, leaden-legged and lumbering, to their bedroom, quickly getting them both undressed and tucked under the duvet. Then the small man who'd filled the biggest void in Sherlock's life, held and rocked, shushed and talked, and Sherlock wouldn't remember what he said, just that he said so much of it, a comforting lullaby of whispers that did one fine thing: They put Sherlock Holmes to sleep.

Mostly Sherlock didn't dream. When he did, the dream wasn't all that bad. In it he couldn't stop his arms and legs from twitching, in it he kept dropping things over and over. Eventually he woke well after dark.

John slept on.

They were still tucked under the duvet, huffing warm breath in one another's faces, and on any other night if Sherlock woke like this, he'd watch John sleep for a brief while before getting up and doing what he always does: Something to busy his mind. Because it's early days for them, only months, not yet years. As time passes, John'll teach Sherlock something he long ago forgot…how to stop. Not his mind, that freight no one can halt, but John'll teach his sweetheart how to wrap himself around his lover's body so that long limbs are stilled, and in stilling his body his mind will learn to pause long enough for sleep to steal him away.

Of course that's not all John'll teach Sherlock. He'll also show him how to touch by welcoming touch, but it's Sherlock who'll teach himself one rare thing: to do so with devotion.

So instead of getting out of bed, Sherlock continued his lessons, laying hands upon his lover while his lover slept.

In the soft light of their bedside lamp Sherlock at last looked at John's face. It's been a bit over half a year they've known each other and in that time both of them have worn their fair share of bruises, because the guilty often favour rocks and sticks and splintered boards. So Sherlock's familiar with this face bearing abrasion, once they even thought John needed stitches, and he probably should have done, but John insisted and right from the start everyone, including Sherlock, knuckled under to this tiny tyrant's more blustering demands.

But these wounds, ah, these were something else again. These were not the result of heart-thrumming adventure, something to quietly crow over as they recounted to each other their own crime-fighting genius.

No, these were battlefield wounds, inelegant, messy, dark, and looking at John's face Sherlock wanted to touch the skin whole, wanted to take away the pain and so remove the need for painkillers, he wanted to hurt _for_ John. It was strange that Sherlock knew so many weeks ago that he'd die for John, [had said those very words](http://archiveofourown.org/works/801836/chapters/1511197), but only just now realised he would suffer for this man. That he'd live through anything if in the living he could keep John safe.

"Anything," he said, at last fluttering fingertips over his one true love's battered cheek.

As he touched, Sherlock imagined. The good detective is fanciful sometimes; a man who can deduce so much from so little has to be.

So despite himself Sherlock imagined he was taking away ache, removing tenderness. He opened his mouth, as if to entice the pain… _here, I'm here, come to me._ And though Sherlock's ever lavish, going full bore along every track on which he sets himself, here he very carefully didn't imagine one thing: What would have happened if he hadn't followed John.

Perhaps he mostly didn't imagine that—though he very soon would—because sensitive fingers felt the body beneath them stir. It was the barest of motions, but this close up it was a shout. John was awake.

Though he pretended he wasn't.

The good doctor knew he wasn't fooling his sweetheart, but he also knew it was easier for Sherlock if sometimes he pretends not to see. Easier for Sherlock to touch and look, smell and taste. Sherlock's used to a certain grace, to knowing _how,_ but here it's all new and so he's still sometimes clueless, clumsy, awkward, and it's hard to be all that all at once in front of the one person whose high opinion you crave.

So sometimes John doesn't look.

And Sherlock pretends he doesn't know.

The butterfly touches continued then, the delicate dance of a careful hand over a beautiful face. Only now Sherlock didn't imagine he was healing, he huffed soft and imagined he was loving.

Despite what he'll say over the years during petulant moments and future fights, there's actually not one part of John Sherlock would change. Not a cranky moment or swear, not a line or stray whisker. Even so, it's especially John's body Sherlock regards as sacred, because he's never known any body this close up, never wanted to.

And this body right here, with its lines and stray whiskers, its soft jaw and firm mouth, this is the one he already knows so well he can tell you how many freckles are on John's shoulders (twenty-eight), which middle toe is longer than the other (the left), and how far up his belly his erection lies when he's hard (more than far enough, dear god yes).

Yet five months into this relationship, Sherlock's not even begun to know all there is to know about this body, much less get a little jaded with it, so he pretended he didn't know John was awake and he tried to take away pain by touching the places that hurt.

And the funny thing was, even Sherlock knew he was doing just that. Not because he understood yet that being touched by someone who cherishes you reduces stress and anxiety, allowing your body to at last rest, but because he saw it with those keen eyes. John's breathing steadied, his heart rate slowed, the tension around his eyes lessened…and he again fell asleep.

That's when Sherlock did something stupid. He turned into _Sherlock_ and started hunting for evidence.

Yes, sure, over the years they'll teach one another much, but that's just the point—it's going to take years before they learn the exact locations of their own rough edges and precisely which habits need abandoning.

Sherlock will take longer to travel this road, and so right now, instead of abandoning a line of study he should not pursue, Sherlock did what he does, this gatherer of clues peeled back the duvet just enough so he could look at John's body with a scientist's eyes.

So it was only now he saw more than the bruises over John's ribs, he saw a small dark crescent on John's thigh. Just last week at the morgue Sherlock had examined in detail a child's body, one with many such marks. Molly had said softly that they were the result of being kicked with a simple Oxford-style shoe.

Sherlock stared at John's leg, blinking fast. Was it right about the time he'd been frenetically jamming toes into his own Oxfords that one of those men was kicking John with his? _Was it—_

No, no, John was still walking when Sherlock rounded onto Park Road, the men were just scuffing up onto the kerb behind him.

Sherlock's breathing ramped.

Why hadn't he seen the kick then? How could he have missed something so basic, so brutal? _What else had he missed?_

They'd sort of laugh about it later, but it wasn't funny what Sherlock did then, and that was take a torch from the bedside table drawer and pull the duvet up high then wriggle his own body low.

Tucking things tight, right up to John's neck, making sure no light would escape, Sherlock flicked the torch on.

The shadowed and lurid light made the bruising across John's body seem so much bigger, darker, _deeper._

Sherlock grunted against a sudden ache in his side, his skin prickled cold, and he reached to touch John's ribs but stopped himself just in time, settling his hand on John's thigh, right near that small black and blue crescent and, breathing faster, he wondered, _What was I doing when they were doing this? Why didn't I_ see? _How is it I didn't—_

Oh. Oh Sherlock remembered now. He'd been praying.

"Please god, oh god no." He'd been running faster than he knew he could and calling on a divinity in which he didn't believe and Sherlock was right, all this time he was _right,_ caring was not an advantage, caring made you blind despite looking right at a thing and so there was only one thing to do about that.

Stop caring.

Sherlock held his breath. Sherlock listened to the roar of his heart. Sherlock stared at John's wounded body, looking but blind.

And here was the exact moment in a fiction where the protagonist dances close to the edge, where the hero makes a stupid choice instead of the right choice. Here there be dragons.

Except Sherlock Holmes isn't a fiction and he isn't a hero. He's a human man for the first time in love with a human man and he's a genius too, is Sherlock Holmes. And so right then he employed a bit of that genius and imagined who he'd be without John Watson.

The answer was obvious. Exactly who he'd been.

With a soft breath Sherlock stepped back from the edge. He made the right choice instead of the stupid one. Because Sherlock Holmes isn't afraid of god damn dragons.

"John…"

The good doctor shifted, drew a pained breath. He grunted against two more shallow breaths, and suddenly Sherlock wanted to cry.

Sherlock would not cry.

Moving slowly, John reached down, found Sherlock's face, cupped it carefully.

Sherlock wanted to grieve.

He would not grieve.

"Sweetie," John sighed.

No, what Sherlock would do was _sublimate._

Moving slowly too, breathing close and soft over humid, musky skin Sherlock whispered, "John," and then slid his warm mouth over John's soft cock.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a spot very near 221B that John knows Sherlock loves. It's where Baker Street meets Marylebone Road and John's pretty sure Sherlock loves it because it's…well it's a lot like Sherlock's brain.

John jumped when Sherlock's tongue touched him, grunted against swift pain skittering across his ribs, then giggled.

When Sherlock asked him about that later, the good doctor said most soldiers learn the skill somewhere early on: If it hurts but doesn't kill you, well you just better mother fucking _laugh._

So as Sherlock closed his mouth around John's still-soft cock John did that. He giggled and petted Sherlock's hair, and a minute later he giggled again because he wasn't hard, then a minute more he _still_ wasn't hard, and John decided he kind of really wanted to be hard, so the good doctor grunt-groaned himself upright, shifted, and straddled Sherlock's head.

Big, warm hands slid up his back, a dark voice rumbled its contentment, and so John laughed a little more, then he ignored the places that hurt and concentrated on the places it didn't.

He took his time.

Because here there was no hurry. Quick as a blink Sherlock usually moves, but in bed he's as leisurely as a dream, slow as a long, warm night.

So John thrust just as leisurely and soon the blood knew where it was needed and so it went, and with it came the fluttery build of tension that would lead to a sweet, limb-loosening release.

Later. _Later._ Because they would not hurry.

Instead John moved and sighed and somewhere in the slow, Sherlock slid his wounded hand over John's heart, and the good doctor knew he was deducing now, Brailling John's body for tells, from goosebumps to hardening muscles to the most important tell of all: The wild thrumming of John's heart.

It's early days, the two of them making love, but it took less than the passing of one for the good detective to figure out how to make those goosebumps, tense those muscles, and busy that fine heart. What he's still figuring out is that he does these things to John's body not with certain touches, licks, moans, but with the simple gift of his desire.

Fortunately there's a lifetime yet for Sherlock to learn.

In the meantime there's time in this long and quiet night for John to languidly thrust and turn himself on by wondering how he'll love in return. And oh he so very much will love his sweetheart in return, because here's a fine fact John Watson knows about Sherlock Holmes: He's an intensely oral man and John's cock in his mouth is so far, bar none, the absolute, one hundred percent best way to get Sherlock hard.

Thinking about the erection he couldn't see made John thrust faster despite himself, thrusting faster made John hurt, and somehow all his wires crossed and, thrusting once, twice, a final time, John came, moaning.

Ah, but there was a problem with that.

Sherlock's wires were crossed, too. So Sherlock heard that sound of pleasure as one of pain, and that's when Sherlock finally finished the complex job of falling to ruin.

Brain blossoming with all the imaginings he'd fought—and with that fast, so very fast brain, it took no time at all for him to connect one to the next, arriving at the final certainty—Sherlock realised an awful thing: John was not impenetrable, oh no, John was fragile, breakable, John was and would ever be _at risk._

Straddled there a little inelegant the good doctor went still, whispered, "Sherlock?"

The answer was low at first, like a hum you feel more than hear. And then it was everywhere and coming from somewhere deep, from a place that doesn't know grace, knows only how to roar down the rooftops with wailing. It was a grown man belatedly learning a child's lesson—that loving can hurt and that the hurt is sometimes bigger than a body can stand. Even one as big as Sherlock's.

John moved fast. He slithered down his lover's long body, thinking _post traumatic stress,_ thinking _hold hold hold,_ and so John pressed himself against Sherlock and at this point his bruises could get fucked and his eye could swell all it liked, there was no way in hell John wasn't going to hold and hold and hold.

Though it didn't help. Not at first.

No, Sherlock just roiled under him, crying rough, hard, _quiet,_ as if struggling to keep the misery in, but John would have none of that, no, so he shoved his tongue in Sherlock's mouth to open it and…

…and found it swimming with spit and salty, vaguely bitter fluid. Sherlock had not swallowed.

So John licked between those lips, not knowing what kind of message he was sending and not caring. He licked and licked and come leaked slow and warm from the corners of Sherlock's mouth and then Sherlock swallowed and licked _John's_ mouth, sucked at his lips, and finally he took gentle hold, tucking John's face against his neck, and he whisper-whimper-cried, "Shhhh, oh shh-shh-shh."

It happened right then and like a light going on in his head, John's realisation. He was not for this man a passing fancy. He would never be something simply to alleviate boredom. No, no, no. John Hamish Watson had become Sherlock Holmes' life.

John hugged back fierce, he shushed too, and he giggled again so help him because to finally know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind those sharp grey eyes? Oh that knowledge was worth a wound, it was worth many wounds. John might not understand why Sherlock's great heart was given so grandly over to him of all people, and he didn't care. All John knew was that the revelation was so sweet it made him _laugh._

A sunny day can go dark without warning, but clouds can clear just as quickly, so John brought Sherlock into the light with him, clearing the clouds short-and-sweet by shoving a finger in Sherlock's ear.

In the midst of a snotty, hitching sob Sherlock twitched away, choke-laughing, "Stop!"

But John didn't stop. Oh for a lifetime John won't stop a lot of things.

Swearing. He'll try to desist all his days, but John Watson will be foul-mouthed for every last one of them.

Gaining and losing weight. The good doctor will wane and then he'll inevitably wax again and that is the end of that.

Protecting Sherlock Holmes. In this John will only wax, he will not wane. Yes, from now and for the rest of his life John Watson will do one thing: care for this rare man.

And so when Sherlock moved away John followed, shoving a finger into each of Sherlock's ears, and if there's a way to freak the good detective right the hell on out that appears to be it.

Smearing tears and spit and lingering drippy bits of come everywhere, they tussled, they turned, they giggled, they groaned.

Sherlock accidentally jammed his fractured fingers against the bed and yowled, John banged his wounded brow on Sherlock's shoulder and swore.

And about two minutes into their wrestling one of them twisted, the other turned, and down they went together, falling on the floor with a Hudson-startling crash.

* * *

There's a spot very near 221B that John knows Sherlock loves. It's where Baker Street meets Marylebone Road and John's pretty sure Sherlock loves it because it's…well it's a lot like Sherlock's brain.

It's relentless, that intersection, never quiet. Cars fly in a six-lane flurry along Marylebone, heading to or from the flyover. Taxis swerve fast round corners, hurtling to the cricket ground. And pedestrians, oh they're like life's blood, flowing thick down kerbs, seeping in a relentless river around traffic-stilled cars.

That intersection where their broad and precious street meets one of London's major arteries, oh it's a persistent place, inexorable. Like Sherlock.

When he's confounded by data, Sherlock sometimes walks the few hundred metres from the flat to any one of Baker Street's corners, and hands in pockets he'll stand still on the pavement, always enough in the way that people must flow around him. It's not their proximity he craves, it's their unceasing motion stripping from his mind the extraneous, somehow leaving behind the clarifying vital. On more than one occasion John's called those corners Sherlock's thinking place.

But thinking wasn't why Sherlock was there now.

No, Sherlock was standing at that intersection because when Sherlock woke he did what he so often does, reached for John. He found instead his own mobile on John's pillow.

The text was simple and clear: _I'm not here to think…I'm here waiting for you._

So, on the day after the day they'd give no name, no special signifier, the day they'd pretend together and forever that they had forgotten, yes, the day after _that_ day Sherlock stood on the west corner of Baker Street and looked south, across Marylebone. And there he did not see John.

So Sherlock looked east, to the other side of Baker Street's four lanes. There he also did not see John.

Sherlock then looked south-east and _there_ the good doctor stood, on the pedestrian island, a small spit of concrete right in the middle of Baker and Marylebone. Standing still right there in a flow of pedestrian traffic while hundreds of cars paused for red lights, so close to him that John could have touched their metal bodies.

When John saw Sherlock finally seeing him, he smiled.

Sherlock will tell you that he never guesses. When he says that, know that Sherlock lies. Because Sherlock guesses all the time. Guessing so often gets you answers because if someone more informed, smarter, or just entirely more pedantic than you is within earshot they're going to correct you. Then—bingo!—evidence unearthed, answer found, wrong righted.

But Sherlock tries not to guess with John and even more, he often tries not to _deduce_ John. Because Sherlock's found something rarer than the charms of being right, with the good doctor he's found a person with whom he doesn't mind being wrong.

No, that's a lie as well, Sherlock still doesn't like being wrong, but with John he feels no shame for it.

That was all beside the point actually. The point was John. There. On that safe, busy little spit of concrete. And Sherlock not wanting to guess why, not wanting to deduce. He wanted John to tell him.

Sherlock stepped from the kerb and against the light of course, striding in front of a Jag, earning a curse from a cab, and John frowned and smiled at the same time and finally Sherlock was there with his lover, on that small island amidst the metal sea.

John blinked up at Sherlock. Sherlock blinked down at John. John looked at the cars around them so close, idling at the red, and so Sherlock looked, too.

John observed the press of people standing beside them. So Sherlock did, too.

After John saw Sherlock seeing all of this, seeing all those very many gazes, all those people who would _see,_ John showed Sherlock he wasn't afraid of them seeing, that he wanted it, that he would never, ever be afraid of letting everyone know how much he loved Sherlock Holmes.

John stood on his tiptoes, wrapped his arms around Sherlock's neck, and kissed him on the mouth.

Sherlock did not at first kiss back.

Because that public kiss made Sherlock think of fists. It made him think of pain and protecting from pain. It made him want to pull away.

Yet here's the thing: Sherlock knows the mind's a tricky place, that it will connect one thing to another thing, making paths, creating memories. Sometimes the paths it makes skew. Sometimes the memories it makes are false. So standing there not kissing back Sherlock realised he was connecting what had happened to John to John's love, and that he was letting it create a faulty, false connection: Fear.

Well.

_Well._

_Oh bloody hell well._

The man who will out talk, out think, out run just about everyone he knows, the one who lives on being lavish, well that one laughed against John's mouth, and finally he kissed back.

They held one another like that, kissing as if that was what that place was for, kissing as if showing everyone who would look, exactly what love looked like.

It looks like laughing, John would say.

It looks like John, Sherlock would say.

What it really looked like was fighting back fear, it looked like being joyous every single moment because that's what each breath was for, to feel and touch and smile and search and dream and love and love and love.

To breathe. And love. And to let everyone see no matter what.

 _That's_ what happened that day right in the middle of Baker Street and Marylebone Road.

And that day they'd give a name, oh yes they would.

Yeah, they'd remember The Morning When That Cabbie Drove Into The Bollard Because She Was Staring At Us for a very, very long time.

_"It was worth a wound, it was worth many wounds…" So goes Arthur Conan Doyle's sweet words about a moment in 'The Adventure of the Three Garridebs' when John realises how much Sherlock cares about him. I wanted my version of John to have a similar revelation. P.S. Here's[that little concrete island](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/80728618030/fic-limb-from-limb-complete-theres-a-spot), right in the middle of Baker Street and Marylebone Road. NEW: And here is Khorazir's [wonderful artwork of that same corner](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/83517099763/khorazir-theres-a-spot-very-near-221b-that)!_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Limb From Limb](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2750174) by [aranel_parmadil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aranel_parmadil/pseuds/aranel_parmadil)




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